Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting: Chapter 1--Talk (100 Quills, Dumbledore's Army, 1/50, G)
Title:Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting: Prologue--Middles
Author:rocketwriter
Rating:G
Prompt Set:50.4
Prompt:Talk
Word Count:2,103
Summary:Ginny, Neville, and Luna talk about the upcoming school year, their summers, and the changed world around them during a long ride on the Hogwarts Express.
Warnings:No beta--please comment with any huge mistakes
Notes:Multi-chaptered fic, which is set in the timeframe Deathly Hallows with Neville, Luna and Ginny at Hogwarts while Harry and the trio are out saving the world. Previous chapters are here
Ginny Weasley made her way through the crowded train aisles, accidentally bumping her trunk against the various compartment doors. It was a challenge steering the bulky thing through the maze of tiny, slim aisle ways, especially when her mother had taken great care to pack the trunk this year, adding extra protection items and sweaters that put an extra inch to the already bulging case.
She walked through quite solemnly, matching the mood of the train as well. Fewer students seemed to be crowding the train than usual, and those who did headed straight into their usual compartment with their tight huddle of friends, slamming the door shut at once. Ginny supposed that she felt the same as they did-worse, perhaps. But did they feel as if something was missing inside, like a vital organ had disappeared, or a bone had decayed?
Still shaking off the feeling of her mother’s rib-shattering, farewell hug, she felt a body bump into her from behind, along with the present sound of falling and clanging of rogue trunk. She whipped her red hair around, staring into the plump face of Neville Longbottom, back on the floor with a chuckling group of Slytherins behind him.
“Longbottom’s got his bottom on the floor again! That must be a record-tripped before even arriving at Hogwarts. Somebody’s got to write that one down.”
“Knock it off!” Ginny yelled with more force than was needed-her anger was derived not only from the teasing of one of her friends, but from something, or someone, else. “Leave him alone for one second, will you?”
But Neville seemed like he didn’t necessarily need her help. He was back on his feet before Ginny finished her sentence, pointing his wand at the fellow students. “Well? How many of you will I have to curse before you get lost?”
Their eyes widening with a mixture of shock and fright, the leader gestured for them to head back into their compartment, which they did without another look at Neville. Ginny backed away as well without noticing she had. It was only when he turned around once again as they last of them had left that he seemed yards away from her.
“Thanks, Ginny. I knew something like this would happen-it always does. I was prepared.”
She said nothing, only stared at the seventeen year old boy longer than she ever had. He had changed so much within the course of the summer-his face, once round and childish, had thinned out for his skin to stretch across the features of his jaw and cheekbones, giving him a fierce look. His wand had come out so smoothly, as if it was just a reflex rather than a movement in which he had regularly stumbled with before.
“Neville,” she said, coming out of her shocked reprieve, “what…what’s happened to you?”
“What do you mean? Do I have something on my face or something?” His fingers swept across his cheeks in a panicked motion.
“No, I mean…never mind. Had a good holiday?”
His fingers retreated; face fading to a sad, solemn smile. “I don’t think any of us did.” Blue eyes shooting both ways, he bent inwards, whispering into Ginny’s ear. “We need to go somewhere. We have to talk about the DA.”
“What?” she said loudly, making Neville wince and respond with a whisper once again.
“Dumbledore’s Army. Luna and I have been talking. If you don’t want to be in it this year, that’s fine. But we really think it needs to be back up again.”
This was always like Neville and Luna, she thought bitterly, trying to comprehend what he was saying. Their minds obviously worked in faster and different ways than normal human beings, for she was still stuck on the image of seeing Neville with a wand to a few Slytherins’ throats.
“I’m sure Harry is thinking of getting it up, too. He’s in charge of all of us, you know. We’d gladly join right away, and I know a bunch of others who would, too. This has to happen, you know, with what’s going on.”
Ginny stared at Neville once again incredulously, taking her a moment and the angered remarks around her to realize that they both were holding up a line of squirming Hogwarts students eager to make it to their compartments. The two drifted sideways into their own empty one, Neville sitting near the door and anxiously keeping a watch out for Luna through the glass while Ginny sat with her arms crossed, pondering her life and how she was feeling more and more like a prisoner every moment. A prisoner with Luna and Neville, the two people in the world she had never imagined she’d spend her train ride back to Hogwarts with.
She had imagined being with Harry. The whole summer she had clung onto some small thread, a tiny string of hope that he had been lying to her, and would return to Hogwarts with her, as well as Ron and Hermione, too. And everything would be back to normal-and he would pull her into a compartment, and kiss her, and tell her everything he’d been up to…
“Hello, Ginny!” a high-pitched, squeaking voice brought her out of her thoughts. Eyes coming back to focus, she realized she was looking into the abnormally huge, blue eyes of Luna Lovegood, and, feeling intimidated by the strange look as usual, found herself sinking farther back into her seat.
“Um, hi, Luna-“
“Had a good holiday? My father and I enjoyed your brother’s wedding very much. I wish we had gnomes like yours in our yard.”
Ginny was about to speak back that Luna could keep them when Neville cut in happily.
“Your brother got married, Ginny?”
“Yes. Bill, you know, he’s been out of Hogwarts-I don’t think you’ve ever met him.”
“No…can’t say I did. I’m just surprised Gran and I didn’t hear about it. Usually she’d scour the Daily Prophet pages, to see if she knew anybody who gave birth, got married, you know. But it doesn’t mention things like that anymore-nothing happy, I suppose.”
Ginny remembered Harry telling her one day in the sun about his trials with Voldemort, that horrible, neither man nor thing that was now in control of the Ministry of Magic and soon the entire wizarding Europe. “He can’t love,” he had said seriously, bringing an arm around her shoulder. “He never has.”
“How can someone just…not love?” she had asked innocently, curling up to her boyfriend. “That’s like…not breathing!”
“I dunno. But he never has loved, probably never will.”
No wonder the Daily Prophet wasn’t printing weddings and births any longer. Voldemort obviously didn’t believe that events such as those were all that important. Nothing built on the basis of love would survive this war, she realized with a pang, the image of her and Harry, posing stiffly for a wedding picture that appeared in print suddenly disappearing as if made from grains of sand that blew away. Love wouldn’t survive the war, not if the Order lost.
“Ginny? Are you okay?” came Neville’s tentative voice, followed by Luna’s dreamy one.
“You don’t seem yourself lately. Was it the gnomes in your yard? Did they confuse you in any way?”
Ginny blew off the last comment, as she couldn’t understand (like usual) what Luna was getting at. “It’s Harry,” she said thickly, her tongue suddenly feeling like it was getting in the way. “He’s not coming back to Hogwarts.”
The two gasped at this unexpected announcement coming from their friend, their whole plan gone in with a few simple words.
“Not coming back? But-“
“Neither are Ron and Hermione. We, um, don’t exactly know where they are at the moment.”
She looked down at her lap, her fingers entwining nervously.
“But you must know where they are!” Luna burst out, her face drooping for the first time. “We just saw them at the wedding!”
“They left afterwards, right when the Death Eaters were coming and you all Apparated away. We were fine-sent out messages to everyone that we were okay. But we were being watched. I still think we were, right up to when I left for Hogwarts this morning.”
They sat in silence for a moment, but it wasn’t as awkward as it may have seemed, considering under the circumstances that Ginny was sitting with the two most awkward students of the school. The silence was given between them as a mournful pause, as the hard facts were digested: Harry, their leader, the one they could all count on bringing them through this difficult time, was gone and wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. Hermione and Ron were gone as well, leaving a gap in the 7th year class.
Eventually, the train began to roll into the countryside, the clouds darkening and eventually splattering the windows with their plump, sky-rocketing raindrops. Thunder added to the silence, lighting streaking across the pallet of the sky and coming dangerously close to the cozy train. But none of this disturbed Ginny-her friends did.
On the compartment door came a knocking, but not a kind, thoughtful sort of knock, loud enough to inform the person of their arrival but not to wake them out of slumber. Knocks rattled the compartment, shaking the windowpanes and causing Neville and Luna to become alert with their wands at ready. Ginny, rolling her eyes, looked through the window and gestured to the two that this was fine.
Three of her sixteen-year-old friends came marching in, two in the midst of a giggling conversation while the third eyed Neville and Luna as if they were some strange-looking particles of luggage Ginny had brought with her.
“Oh my god, Ginny!” One girl, her hair blond and in pigtails, hollered out, immediately stopping her conversation with the other. “We’ve been looking for you all over. What are you doing here?” Her nose upturned at the two oddly-human shaped luggage pieces.
A beat. “I’m sitting with some other people today,” Ginny said, her voice unwavering. “Is that alright?”
“Ginny, you always sit with us!” another cried, tugging her arm gently. “Come on! We have so much to tell you-so Glena met this cute, Muggle boy at the beach this summer, right?”
“Oh, do we have to talk about that here?” The girl who had been eyeing Neville and Luna suspiciously began to blush. “I don’t want them to hear about it.”
“Well, that’s okay, then. We don’t want to hear about it.”
Everyone in the compartment wheeled around, staring directly at Neville in disbelief. Luna’s eyes grew wide, her usual bright smile appearing on her face again.
“Neville’s right,” Ginny said steadily, still uncomprehending this new Neville. “We were talking about other things. I’ll catch up with you guys at the Feast, alright?”
The three girls simply couldn’t accept that. Who didn’t want to hear all the juicy gossip? Dumbfounded, the two walked out like puppies that had just been told to sleep outside in the rain, while Glena stayed behind, eyeing her friend.
“What is your problem? Have you been Confunded or something? We haven’t seen you all summer. Think about where you choose to sit, alright?” And the compartment door slammed closed, rattling the windows once more so furiously that they looked as if they were about to break.
Ginny looked down at her lap once again, blushing as she muttered a downcast apology. “I’m sorry. They’re not usually, so…so…”
“Odd? Abnormal? Unusual?” Luna helped out gently. Ginny looked up and smiled, previously thinking on several occasions that those words had pertained to the girl who had spoken them.
“Yes. Exactly.”
The silence filled the air again, but Neville budged in and wouldn’t let it creep in. “But, Ginny-are you okay?”
“Me? Um…yes. Yes, I’m fine. I’m sure I’ll be better once we get to the castle, anyway. Food in my stomach.” She knew she was rambling, but would do anything these days to get her mind off of him. “Now, let’s not talk about the DA right now. Who knows? Maybe this war will end quickly and we won’t even need it. Let’s just talk.”
“Talk?”
“Yes, Luna, talk.”
The Ravenclaw 6th year still looked tentative at this. “About what?”
“Just about anything.”
“Okay…what about Harry?”
Neville looked at Luna with impatience, realizing that the last thing Ginny wanted to talk about was her ex-boyfriend who was currently parading about, trying to save the wizarding world.
“Nah, that’s okay, Luna. How about we talk about anything but Harry?”
Author:rocketwriter
Rating:G
Prompt Set:50.4
Prompt:Talk
Word Count:2,103
Summary:Ginny, Neville, and Luna talk about the upcoming school year, their summers, and the changed world around them during a long ride on the Hogwarts Express.
Warnings:No beta--please comment with any huge mistakes
Notes:Multi-chaptered fic, which is set in the timeframe Deathly Hallows with Neville, Luna and Ginny at Hogwarts while Harry and the trio are out saving the world. Previous chapters are here
Ginny Weasley made her way through the crowded train aisles, accidentally bumping her trunk against the various compartment doors. It was a challenge steering the bulky thing through the maze of tiny, slim aisle ways, especially when her mother had taken great care to pack the trunk this year, adding extra protection items and sweaters that put an extra inch to the already bulging case.
She walked through quite solemnly, matching the mood of the train as well. Fewer students seemed to be crowding the train than usual, and those who did headed straight into their usual compartment with their tight huddle of friends, slamming the door shut at once. Ginny supposed that she felt the same as they did-worse, perhaps. But did they feel as if something was missing inside, like a vital organ had disappeared, or a bone had decayed?
Still shaking off the feeling of her mother’s rib-shattering, farewell hug, she felt a body bump into her from behind, along with the present sound of falling and clanging of rogue trunk. She whipped her red hair around, staring into the plump face of Neville Longbottom, back on the floor with a chuckling group of Slytherins behind him.
“Longbottom’s got his bottom on the floor again! That must be a record-tripped before even arriving at Hogwarts. Somebody’s got to write that one down.”
“Knock it off!” Ginny yelled with more force than was needed-her anger was derived not only from the teasing of one of her friends, but from something, or someone, else. “Leave him alone for one second, will you?”
But Neville seemed like he didn’t necessarily need her help. He was back on his feet before Ginny finished her sentence, pointing his wand at the fellow students. “Well? How many of you will I have to curse before you get lost?”
Their eyes widening with a mixture of shock and fright, the leader gestured for them to head back into their compartment, which they did without another look at Neville. Ginny backed away as well without noticing she had. It was only when he turned around once again as they last of them had left that he seemed yards away from her.
“Thanks, Ginny. I knew something like this would happen-it always does. I was prepared.”
She said nothing, only stared at the seventeen year old boy longer than she ever had. He had changed so much within the course of the summer-his face, once round and childish, had thinned out for his skin to stretch across the features of his jaw and cheekbones, giving him a fierce look. His wand had come out so smoothly, as if it was just a reflex rather than a movement in which he had regularly stumbled with before.
“Neville,” she said, coming out of her shocked reprieve, “what…what’s happened to you?”
“What do you mean? Do I have something on my face or something?” His fingers swept across his cheeks in a panicked motion.
“No, I mean…never mind. Had a good holiday?”
His fingers retreated; face fading to a sad, solemn smile. “I don’t think any of us did.” Blue eyes shooting both ways, he bent inwards, whispering into Ginny’s ear. “We need to go somewhere. We have to talk about the DA.”
“What?” she said loudly, making Neville wince and respond with a whisper once again.
“Dumbledore’s Army. Luna and I have been talking. If you don’t want to be in it this year, that’s fine. But we really think it needs to be back up again.”
This was always like Neville and Luna, she thought bitterly, trying to comprehend what he was saying. Their minds obviously worked in faster and different ways than normal human beings, for she was still stuck on the image of seeing Neville with a wand to a few Slytherins’ throats.
“I’m sure Harry is thinking of getting it up, too. He’s in charge of all of us, you know. We’d gladly join right away, and I know a bunch of others who would, too. This has to happen, you know, with what’s going on.”
Ginny stared at Neville once again incredulously, taking her a moment and the angered remarks around her to realize that they both were holding up a line of squirming Hogwarts students eager to make it to their compartments. The two drifted sideways into their own empty one, Neville sitting near the door and anxiously keeping a watch out for Luna through the glass while Ginny sat with her arms crossed, pondering her life and how she was feeling more and more like a prisoner every moment. A prisoner with Luna and Neville, the two people in the world she had never imagined she’d spend her train ride back to Hogwarts with.
She had imagined being with Harry. The whole summer she had clung onto some small thread, a tiny string of hope that he had been lying to her, and would return to Hogwarts with her, as well as Ron and Hermione, too. And everything would be back to normal-and he would pull her into a compartment, and kiss her, and tell her everything he’d been up to…
“Hello, Ginny!” a high-pitched, squeaking voice brought her out of her thoughts. Eyes coming back to focus, she realized she was looking into the abnormally huge, blue eyes of Luna Lovegood, and, feeling intimidated by the strange look as usual, found herself sinking farther back into her seat.
“Um, hi, Luna-“
“Had a good holiday? My father and I enjoyed your brother’s wedding very much. I wish we had gnomes like yours in our yard.”
Ginny was about to speak back that Luna could keep them when Neville cut in happily.
“Your brother got married, Ginny?”
“Yes. Bill, you know, he’s been out of Hogwarts-I don’t think you’ve ever met him.”
“No…can’t say I did. I’m just surprised Gran and I didn’t hear about it. Usually she’d scour the Daily Prophet pages, to see if she knew anybody who gave birth, got married, you know. But it doesn’t mention things like that anymore-nothing happy, I suppose.”
Ginny remembered Harry telling her one day in the sun about his trials with Voldemort, that horrible, neither man nor thing that was now in control of the Ministry of Magic and soon the entire wizarding Europe. “He can’t love,” he had said seriously, bringing an arm around her shoulder. “He never has.”
“How can someone just…not love?” she had asked innocently, curling up to her boyfriend. “That’s like…not breathing!”
“I dunno. But he never has loved, probably never will.”
No wonder the Daily Prophet wasn’t printing weddings and births any longer. Voldemort obviously didn’t believe that events such as those were all that important. Nothing built on the basis of love would survive this war, she realized with a pang, the image of her and Harry, posing stiffly for a wedding picture that appeared in print suddenly disappearing as if made from grains of sand that blew away. Love wouldn’t survive the war, not if the Order lost.
“Ginny? Are you okay?” came Neville’s tentative voice, followed by Luna’s dreamy one.
“You don’t seem yourself lately. Was it the gnomes in your yard? Did they confuse you in any way?”
Ginny blew off the last comment, as she couldn’t understand (like usual) what Luna was getting at. “It’s Harry,” she said thickly, her tongue suddenly feeling like it was getting in the way. “He’s not coming back to Hogwarts.”
The two gasped at this unexpected announcement coming from their friend, their whole plan gone in with a few simple words.
“Not coming back? But-“
“Neither are Ron and Hermione. We, um, don’t exactly know where they are at the moment.”
She looked down at her lap, her fingers entwining nervously.
“But you must know where they are!” Luna burst out, her face drooping for the first time. “We just saw them at the wedding!”
“They left afterwards, right when the Death Eaters were coming and you all Apparated away. We were fine-sent out messages to everyone that we were okay. But we were being watched. I still think we were, right up to when I left for Hogwarts this morning.”
They sat in silence for a moment, but it wasn’t as awkward as it may have seemed, considering under the circumstances that Ginny was sitting with the two most awkward students of the school. The silence was given between them as a mournful pause, as the hard facts were digested: Harry, their leader, the one they could all count on bringing them through this difficult time, was gone and wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. Hermione and Ron were gone as well, leaving a gap in the 7th year class.
Eventually, the train began to roll into the countryside, the clouds darkening and eventually splattering the windows with their plump, sky-rocketing raindrops. Thunder added to the silence, lighting streaking across the pallet of the sky and coming dangerously close to the cozy train. But none of this disturbed Ginny-her friends did.
On the compartment door came a knocking, but not a kind, thoughtful sort of knock, loud enough to inform the person of their arrival but not to wake them out of slumber. Knocks rattled the compartment, shaking the windowpanes and causing Neville and Luna to become alert with their wands at ready. Ginny, rolling her eyes, looked through the window and gestured to the two that this was fine.
Three of her sixteen-year-old friends came marching in, two in the midst of a giggling conversation while the third eyed Neville and Luna as if they were some strange-looking particles of luggage Ginny had brought with her.
“Oh my god, Ginny!” One girl, her hair blond and in pigtails, hollered out, immediately stopping her conversation with the other. “We’ve been looking for you all over. What are you doing here?” Her nose upturned at the two oddly-human shaped luggage pieces.
A beat. “I’m sitting with some other people today,” Ginny said, her voice unwavering. “Is that alright?”
“Ginny, you always sit with us!” another cried, tugging her arm gently. “Come on! We have so much to tell you-so Glena met this cute, Muggle boy at the beach this summer, right?”
“Oh, do we have to talk about that here?” The girl who had been eyeing Neville and Luna suspiciously began to blush. “I don’t want them to hear about it.”
“Well, that’s okay, then. We don’t want to hear about it.”
Everyone in the compartment wheeled around, staring directly at Neville in disbelief. Luna’s eyes grew wide, her usual bright smile appearing on her face again.
“Neville’s right,” Ginny said steadily, still uncomprehending this new Neville. “We were talking about other things. I’ll catch up with you guys at the Feast, alright?”
The three girls simply couldn’t accept that. Who didn’t want to hear all the juicy gossip? Dumbfounded, the two walked out like puppies that had just been told to sleep outside in the rain, while Glena stayed behind, eyeing her friend.
“What is your problem? Have you been Confunded or something? We haven’t seen you all summer. Think about where you choose to sit, alright?” And the compartment door slammed closed, rattling the windows once more so furiously that they looked as if they were about to break.
Ginny looked down at her lap once again, blushing as she muttered a downcast apology. “I’m sorry. They’re not usually, so…so…”
“Odd? Abnormal? Unusual?” Luna helped out gently. Ginny looked up and smiled, previously thinking on several occasions that those words had pertained to the girl who had spoken them.
“Yes. Exactly.”
The silence filled the air again, but Neville budged in and wouldn’t let it creep in. “But, Ginny-are you okay?”
“Me? Um…yes. Yes, I’m fine. I’m sure I’ll be better once we get to the castle, anyway. Food in my stomach.” She knew she was rambling, but would do anything these days to get her mind off of him. “Now, let’s not talk about the DA right now. Who knows? Maybe this war will end quickly and we won’t even need it. Let’s just talk.”
“Talk?”
“Yes, Luna, talk.”
The Ravenclaw 6th year still looked tentative at this. “About what?”
“Just about anything.”
“Okay…what about Harry?”
Neville looked at Luna with impatience, realizing that the last thing Ginny wanted to talk about was her ex-boyfriend who was currently parading about, trying to save the wizarding world.
“Nah, that’s okay, Luna. How about we talk about anything but Harry?”