Harrypotterbang Chapter Two
Title: Severus Snape and the Battle of Hogwarts
Pairing: Snape/Hermione, Harry/Ginny
Rating: PG13
Warnings: AU Deathly Hallows
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter Series belongs to J K Rowling. No copyright infringement intended, and no money is being made.
Beta: The wonderful glittersprite
Artist: The most talented duskblue
Summary: Severus Snape is Headmaster of Hogwarts, Death Eater, estranged member of the Order of the Phoenix, long-suffering victim of Dumbledore’s Army and battling against all the odds to ensure the Dark Lord’s defeat.
Chapter Two
The night had seemed to be everlasting to Ginny, but the weak light of the early autumn morning had finally reached above the forest and the sun was fighting its way up into the sky so that its rays were finally starting to seep through the cracks in the curtains at her dormitory window. Her mother had made her promise that she would not leave her shared sleeping quarters in Gryffindor Tower until it was light, but with all the changes that had happened and Voldemort gaining hold of the Ministry, she was struggling to see why she should keep that promise.
She was worried about her family, the members of the Order of the Phoenix, her friends at school and those on the run. She was most worried about her brother Ron, Hermione and Harry who were who knew where doing who knew what. That was what made her worry about them more than anyone else. She had some form of contact with everyone, even if it was minimal and they could not allude to anything important. Nevertheless, it was still letters, short notes or contact via word of mouth that proved they were ok. With Harry, Ron and Hermione she had nothing. Every day she scoured the Daily Prophet to see what lies were being printed and then she would avidly read the Quibbler, her heart in her mouth, knowing that Luna’s father was the only one out there printing the truth and that the truth could mean reading of a loved one’s disappearance, or worse, their death.
Being at school, sitting around doing nothing whilst others fought against You-Know-Who’s dark regime, was making her crazy. She felt as if she was useless and she did not want to feel that way. She was in school, but that did not have to mean not being part of the fight. With an idea starting to form, she threw her bedclothes back and raced into the shared bathroom with such an urgency that she accidently slammed the door half waking one of her roommates who murmured something mostly incoherent about clowns and went back to sleep. It was, after all, before six o’clock in the morning.
Ginny jumped in the shower and got herself dressed in record time. Then she rummaged in her trunk to find what would help her with her idea. Once she found what she was looking for she grabbed her bag and headed out to the common room to start properly forming her idea. Some of Hermione’s organisational skills seemed to have rubbed off on her. Anyway, this way she would feel less of a spare part and more like she was actually doing something. Plus, she wanted to catch Neville as he got up. He was going to be an integral part of her plan.
Entering the empty common room Ginny was happy to see that the House Elves had already been in and tidied up and there was a fresh fire in the grate. Even though it was not yet winter, the Gryffindor Tower could be quite cold so Ginny settled down in the armchair closest to the fire which faced the entrance to all the dormitories and pulled out some spare parchment, quill, ink and her copy of Hogwarts, A History (because it was an excellent book for leaning on when you didn’t want to sit at a table). Then she wrote at the top of her piece of parchment: Dumbledore’s Army.
It was not long before others in the Tower started to stir. The current atmosphere, the war they were living through, meant that no student in Gryffindor Tower was completely happy or at ease. All of them were affected whether they be pureblood, half-blood or muggle born. The muggle born’s were most affected by the new piece of legislation which meant that they should be able to prove an ancestry to a wizarding family, and if they could not they had to stand trial for stealing their magic from the wizarding community. Dean Thomas had already had to go into hiding. Ginny had been one of the ones to convince him to go. As much as they may have a history, they had split up on friendly terms and she could not stand to see any of her friends getting hurt by Voldemort’s Ministry changes. She had been quite forceful as she had told him that he needed to go into hiding.
Following Harry, Ron and Hermione escaping the invasion at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, the carnage of the intrusion had given Ginny an idea of just what could happen to someone that the Death Eaters were hunting. It had been awful. One minute they were dancing on the dance floor, people were drinking, chatting, and generally feeling happy and relaxed. The next minute, the warning came in and then pandemonium broke out.
Ginny had been dancing with Luna when the lynx patronus had landed in the midst of the wedding party. Her first thought had been for Harry. Then, as she turned this way and that trying to find him, masked figures had appeared on the dance floor and suddenly there were spells flying through the air and she was afraid for her family as well as her friends. She had ducked, and then grabbed Luna and they had run out of the tent only to find more masked figures surrounding them. Mr Lovegood then ran up to them and, taking hold of Luna’s hand to pull her towards him, had disapparated with a shout to leave quickly as the Death Eaters could not follow them all.
The charms protecting her family home had broken and she had no idea what to do. This was her home. She had nowhere to disapparate to even if she had learnt how to do it. Panic had nearly taken over but she seized her wand and proceeded to block any spells headed her way as she attempted to find her family members, all the while praying to Merlin that Harry, Ron and Hermione had escaped.
To this day, she was still unsure as to exactly what had happened once the Death Eaters had arrived. Nor could she really explain how her family had survived it. She supposed that their blood status had had a lot to do with it. But survive they had and her last good memory of Harry had been the kiss she had given him on his seventeenth birthday. She had no idea where he was, or what state he was in. She had no idea whether Ron and Hermione were ok either. But there was a way in which she believed that she, as well as any of the other students that wanted to, could help them. All she needed to do was speak to Neville and get the ball rolling.
As she had been sat in front of the fire waiting to accost Neville when he emerged from his dormitory, she had been writing a list of all the people that had been involved in Dumbledore’s Army when Harry had been teaching them the defensive spells that they would need to know when faced with Death Eaters and dementors and whatever else that You-Know-Who might throw at them. Next to this list she had started a column titled ‘Items to Use Against Them’ and beneath it had listed:
New Recruits
Defence lessons
Grafitti - scaremongering?
Show loyalty to Dumbledore / Hogwarts
Then beneath both lists and in capitals with many lines underlining it she had written ‘SWORD OF GRYFFINDOR’.
Her ideas needed to have more brains looking at them and that was why she was waiting for Neville. She was not kept waiting much longer and as Neville entered the common room she tried to call him over only to find croaking to be her voice of the moment, probably due to lack of use and not having had a drink yet that morning.
“Oh! Hi Ginny,” Neville said, her croak having notified him to her presence, “You ok?”
“Hi Neville, I’m ok, better than ok, I’ve got an idea and I need your help,” She replied as Neville made his way over to her.
He sat down in the chair next to hers as she handed him the piece of parchment she had been working on and her piece de resistance - the coin they had each been given by Hermione. Her eyes shone with barely contained excitement as Neville looked over the list.
“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Asked Neville.
“We need to re-instate Dumbledore’s Army, revolution from within. Get the old recruits back on board, get new recruits and fight against this regime ourselves. We can’t just sit here doing nothing!” she gushed in a whisper, “I think we need the sword of Gryffindor to help Harry defeat You-Know-Who! Are you in?”
It did not take long for Neville to answer. He had been feeling just as much a spare, useless part as Ginny had.
“I’m in!” he exclaimed as he produced his coin from his pocket. He had been carrying it around in case anyone used theirs. “We can see who we can talk to throughout the day. The sooner we get started the better. I think we need to get Luna on board as she can rally the Ravenclaws, we’ve got Gryffindor covered so we’ll need to get Ernie Macmillan on board to rally the Hufflepuffs and I’m guessing we can rule out any involvement from Slytherin.”
“Yeah, we don’t want to let any of them in on it as they’d run straight off to their precious Snape or Carrows,” Replied Ginny with quite a lot of venom for her.
“Why do you think Harry will need the sword?” Neville queried as he had thought it an odd thing for her to have put on the list and could not work out himself why she thought that Harry might need it.
“I’m not one hundred percent certain he will need it,” replied Ginny, “but I think he might. I’ll explain more once we’ve got Ernie and Luna involved, gives me a chance to organise my thoughts so that I can explain properly.”
“Come on then,” said Neville, “let’s get to breakfast and see if we can’t catch Ernie and Luna before too many people notice what we’re trying to do.”
Ginny nodded and took the parchment off Neville casting a disillusionment charm on it to make it look like her class notes; much to Neville’s approval; and then stuffed everything back into her bag. She then led the way out of the portrait hole and they made their way down to the Great Hall together.
Their confident stance faltered somewhat when they entered the Great Hall, at this early hour, only to find that Snape was already seated in Dumbledore’s seat at the Head Table. That scuppered their plans a little bit. That man saw everything that went on in this school. He seemed to have happily (if you could describe him that way) stepped into the Headmasters shoes and now, on top of his ability to suddenly appear just when you really didn’t want him to, had seemed to have gained Dumbledore’s knack of knowing everything. There was no chance that they would be able to approach either the Hufflepuff table or the Ravenclaw table without creating suspicion.
Neville went straight to the Gryffindor table and sat in the seat closest to the main entrance, facing the Hufflepuff table. Following him, Ginny went and sat opposite so that she was facing the Ravenclaw table. Where they were positioned there was a small chance that they might be able to attract Luna or Ernie’s attention without seeming to do it deliberately. They both kept shooting sideways glances at the Head table until Snape caught Neville’s eye and Neville suddenly decided to look like he was trying to revise for his first lesson.
As they buttered their toast and attempted to eat a decent breakfast around the butterflies that had taken up residence in their stomach, the hall started to fill up with the other students. The near silence that had been present when they first entered the room dissipated with the chatter of the Slytherins and whispered conversations of the other students scattered about the four tables. Ginny had taken her coin out and was turning it over in one hand as she tried to think of a way of getting the others attention. At that moment, Luna entered the hall and made to walk past her. In a flash of inspiration, Ginny laid the coin next to her plate in full view of anyone walking past. The action received the desired result.
Luna saw the coin and said, “Breakfast looks so much more interesting today, don’t you think?” as she walked past.
Returning the coin to her pocket Ginny smiled at Neville. Objective one was complete. Now all they needed to do was make Ernie aware and then they could use the coins to arrange a meeting place where they would be able to share their idea and devise a plan of action.
“Ernie is here,” Neville told Ginny, “I’m going to try and bump into him on the way out. Where do you think we should meet?”
“Hagrid’s hut,” Ginny replied firmly, “You can send the message as only you will know whether you’ve managed to tell Ernie or not and we should meet there straight after our last class. Hagrid will like the company.”
Neville nodded at the wisdom behind this and then scooped up all his things as Ernie got up to leave for his class.
********
Continue
Pairing: Snape/Hermione, Harry/Ginny
Rating: PG13
Warnings: AU Deathly Hallows
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter Series belongs to J K Rowling. No copyright infringement intended, and no money is being made.
Beta: The wonderful glittersprite
Artist: The most talented duskblue
Summary: Severus Snape is Headmaster of Hogwarts, Death Eater, estranged member of the Order of the Phoenix, long-suffering victim of Dumbledore’s Army and battling against all the odds to ensure the Dark Lord’s defeat.
Chapter Two
The night had seemed to be everlasting to Ginny, but the weak light of the early autumn morning had finally reached above the forest and the sun was fighting its way up into the sky so that its rays were finally starting to seep through the cracks in the curtains at her dormitory window. Her mother had made her promise that she would not leave her shared sleeping quarters in Gryffindor Tower until it was light, but with all the changes that had happened and Voldemort gaining hold of the Ministry, she was struggling to see why she should keep that promise.
She was worried about her family, the members of the Order of the Phoenix, her friends at school and those on the run. She was most worried about her brother Ron, Hermione and Harry who were who knew where doing who knew what. That was what made her worry about them more than anyone else. She had some form of contact with everyone, even if it was minimal and they could not allude to anything important. Nevertheless, it was still letters, short notes or contact via word of mouth that proved they were ok. With Harry, Ron and Hermione she had nothing. Every day she scoured the Daily Prophet to see what lies were being printed and then she would avidly read the Quibbler, her heart in her mouth, knowing that Luna’s father was the only one out there printing the truth and that the truth could mean reading of a loved one’s disappearance, or worse, their death.
Being at school, sitting around doing nothing whilst others fought against You-Know-Who’s dark regime, was making her crazy. She felt as if she was useless and she did not want to feel that way. She was in school, but that did not have to mean not being part of the fight. With an idea starting to form, she threw her bedclothes back and raced into the shared bathroom with such an urgency that she accidently slammed the door half waking one of her roommates who murmured something mostly incoherent about clowns and went back to sleep. It was, after all, before six o’clock in the morning.
Ginny jumped in the shower and got herself dressed in record time. Then she rummaged in her trunk to find what would help her with her idea. Once she found what she was looking for she grabbed her bag and headed out to the common room to start properly forming her idea. Some of Hermione’s organisational skills seemed to have rubbed off on her. Anyway, this way she would feel less of a spare part and more like she was actually doing something. Plus, she wanted to catch Neville as he got up. He was going to be an integral part of her plan.
Entering the empty common room Ginny was happy to see that the House Elves had already been in and tidied up and there was a fresh fire in the grate. Even though it was not yet winter, the Gryffindor Tower could be quite cold so Ginny settled down in the armchair closest to the fire which faced the entrance to all the dormitories and pulled out some spare parchment, quill, ink and her copy of Hogwarts, A History (because it was an excellent book for leaning on when you didn’t want to sit at a table). Then she wrote at the top of her piece of parchment: Dumbledore’s Army.
It was not long before others in the Tower started to stir. The current atmosphere, the war they were living through, meant that no student in Gryffindor Tower was completely happy or at ease. All of them were affected whether they be pureblood, half-blood or muggle born. The muggle born’s were most affected by the new piece of legislation which meant that they should be able to prove an ancestry to a wizarding family, and if they could not they had to stand trial for stealing their magic from the wizarding community. Dean Thomas had already had to go into hiding. Ginny had been one of the ones to convince him to go. As much as they may have a history, they had split up on friendly terms and she could not stand to see any of her friends getting hurt by Voldemort’s Ministry changes. She had been quite forceful as she had told him that he needed to go into hiding.
Following Harry, Ron and Hermione escaping the invasion at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, the carnage of the intrusion had given Ginny an idea of just what could happen to someone that the Death Eaters were hunting. It had been awful. One minute they were dancing on the dance floor, people were drinking, chatting, and generally feeling happy and relaxed. The next minute, the warning came in and then pandemonium broke out.
Ginny had been dancing with Luna when the lynx patronus had landed in the midst of the wedding party. Her first thought had been for Harry. Then, as she turned this way and that trying to find him, masked figures had appeared on the dance floor and suddenly there were spells flying through the air and she was afraid for her family as well as her friends. She had ducked, and then grabbed Luna and they had run out of the tent only to find more masked figures surrounding them. Mr Lovegood then ran up to them and, taking hold of Luna’s hand to pull her towards him, had disapparated with a shout to leave quickly as the Death Eaters could not follow them all.
The charms protecting her family home had broken and she had no idea what to do. This was her home. She had nowhere to disapparate to even if she had learnt how to do it. Panic had nearly taken over but she seized her wand and proceeded to block any spells headed her way as she attempted to find her family members, all the while praying to Merlin that Harry, Ron and Hermione had escaped.
To this day, she was still unsure as to exactly what had happened once the Death Eaters had arrived. Nor could she really explain how her family had survived it. She supposed that their blood status had had a lot to do with it. But survive they had and her last good memory of Harry had been the kiss she had given him on his seventeenth birthday. She had no idea where he was, or what state he was in. She had no idea whether Ron and Hermione were ok either. But there was a way in which she believed that she, as well as any of the other students that wanted to, could help them. All she needed to do was speak to Neville and get the ball rolling.
As she had been sat in front of the fire waiting to accost Neville when he emerged from his dormitory, she had been writing a list of all the people that had been involved in Dumbledore’s Army when Harry had been teaching them the defensive spells that they would need to know when faced with Death Eaters and dementors and whatever else that You-Know-Who might throw at them. Next to this list she had started a column titled ‘Items to Use Against Them’ and beneath it had listed:
New Recruits
Defence lessons
Grafitti - scaremongering?
Show loyalty to Dumbledore / Hogwarts
Then beneath both lists and in capitals with many lines underlining it she had written ‘SWORD OF GRYFFINDOR’.
Her ideas needed to have more brains looking at them and that was why she was waiting for Neville. She was not kept waiting much longer and as Neville entered the common room she tried to call him over only to find croaking to be her voice of the moment, probably due to lack of use and not having had a drink yet that morning.
“Oh! Hi Ginny,” Neville said, her croak having notified him to her presence, “You ok?”
“Hi Neville, I’m ok, better than ok, I’ve got an idea and I need your help,” She replied as Neville made his way over to her.
He sat down in the chair next to hers as she handed him the piece of parchment she had been working on and her piece de resistance - the coin they had each been given by Hermione. Her eyes shone with barely contained excitement as Neville looked over the list.
“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Asked Neville.
“We need to re-instate Dumbledore’s Army, revolution from within. Get the old recruits back on board, get new recruits and fight against this regime ourselves. We can’t just sit here doing nothing!” she gushed in a whisper, “I think we need the sword of Gryffindor to help Harry defeat You-Know-Who! Are you in?”
It did not take long for Neville to answer. He had been feeling just as much a spare, useless part as Ginny had.
“I’m in!” he exclaimed as he produced his coin from his pocket. He had been carrying it around in case anyone used theirs. “We can see who we can talk to throughout the day. The sooner we get started the better. I think we need to get Luna on board as she can rally the Ravenclaws, we’ve got Gryffindor covered so we’ll need to get Ernie Macmillan on board to rally the Hufflepuffs and I’m guessing we can rule out any involvement from Slytherin.”
“Yeah, we don’t want to let any of them in on it as they’d run straight off to their precious Snape or Carrows,” Replied Ginny with quite a lot of venom for her.
“Why do you think Harry will need the sword?” Neville queried as he had thought it an odd thing for her to have put on the list and could not work out himself why she thought that Harry might need it.
“I’m not one hundred percent certain he will need it,” replied Ginny, “but I think he might. I’ll explain more once we’ve got Ernie and Luna involved, gives me a chance to organise my thoughts so that I can explain properly.”
“Come on then,” said Neville, “let’s get to breakfast and see if we can’t catch Ernie and Luna before too many people notice what we’re trying to do.”
Ginny nodded and took the parchment off Neville casting a disillusionment charm on it to make it look like her class notes; much to Neville’s approval; and then stuffed everything back into her bag. She then led the way out of the portrait hole and they made their way down to the Great Hall together.
Their confident stance faltered somewhat when they entered the Great Hall, at this early hour, only to find that Snape was already seated in Dumbledore’s seat at the Head Table. That scuppered their plans a little bit. That man saw everything that went on in this school. He seemed to have happily (if you could describe him that way) stepped into the Headmasters shoes and now, on top of his ability to suddenly appear just when you really didn’t want him to, had seemed to have gained Dumbledore’s knack of knowing everything. There was no chance that they would be able to approach either the Hufflepuff table or the Ravenclaw table without creating suspicion.
Neville went straight to the Gryffindor table and sat in the seat closest to the main entrance, facing the Hufflepuff table. Following him, Ginny went and sat opposite so that she was facing the Ravenclaw table. Where they were positioned there was a small chance that they might be able to attract Luna or Ernie’s attention without seeming to do it deliberately. They both kept shooting sideways glances at the Head table until Snape caught Neville’s eye and Neville suddenly decided to look like he was trying to revise for his first lesson.
As they buttered their toast and attempted to eat a decent breakfast around the butterflies that had taken up residence in their stomach, the hall started to fill up with the other students. The near silence that had been present when they first entered the room dissipated with the chatter of the Slytherins and whispered conversations of the other students scattered about the four tables. Ginny had taken her coin out and was turning it over in one hand as she tried to think of a way of getting the others attention. At that moment, Luna entered the hall and made to walk past her. In a flash of inspiration, Ginny laid the coin next to her plate in full view of anyone walking past. The action received the desired result.
Luna saw the coin and said, “Breakfast looks so much more interesting today, don’t you think?” as she walked past.
Returning the coin to her pocket Ginny smiled at Neville. Objective one was complete. Now all they needed to do was make Ernie aware and then they could use the coins to arrange a meeting place where they would be able to share their idea and devise a plan of action.
“Ernie is here,” Neville told Ginny, “I’m going to try and bump into him on the way out. Where do you think we should meet?”
“Hagrid’s hut,” Ginny replied firmly, “You can send the message as only you will know whether you’ve managed to tell Ernie or not and we should meet there straight after our last class. Hagrid will like the company.”
Neville nodded at the wisdom behind this and then scooped up all his things as Ernie got up to leave for his class.
********
Continue