Rise of the Death Eaters [3]

Chapter 38: V-Day

*My stupid ass mixed up the days of when I was supposed to upload. Sorry about that. To make up for it I added a bit more to the chap so it's another long one: word count 4393*

February came to Hogwarts quickly with its icy weather and grey skies that lost its lackluster charm January carried. "Winter Blues" seemed to be founded in February, Ava thought as she and Sam were walking out of Transfiguration that morning.

Even with it being 10 in the morning, the sky was bleak, as if a thunderstorm was about to shatter the castle walls. But there was no rumbling.

"At this rate, if McGonagall tries another lesson like that I might end up being as terrible as you are in this class," Sam declared with a pout. "D'you think Granger would mind having another pupil?"

"We haven't been meeting much for tutoring, recently," I admitted guilty. "DA has taken up most of her time and mine."

"Sure," Sam said with an underlining theme. "The DA has taken up all your time. Nothing else. Remind me, since our last meeting a week ago, what have you been spending every afternoon doing?"

"Doing? Will you stop already," I reprimanded quickly but the blush that followed was all Sam aimed for.

"What? It's February. What did you expect? Happy early V- Day."

Other than the quick switch in months, another change had suddenly taken hold of Hogwarts seemingly overnight.

The Inquisitor Squad was in full force by the end of January with numerous sign ups from different houses. The numbers Draco told me were astounding, even with my assumption that his brag held a bit of a white lie.

I just couldn't believe so many students were willing to join with Umbridge.

"You know what that means, don't you?" Ginny asked as she, Sam and I were out walking together after Magical Creatures. Ella was coming from the opposite direction for her own class time in Magical creatures and paused in step at the obvious tension in the conversation.

"More wondering ears," Sam replied simply. Ginny nodded and turned to the Ella and I cautiously.

"We'll need to stop bringing it up in the halls. Anywhere someone can hear. Especially for you two," she added eyeing Sam and I.

"You don't have to call us out so readily," Sam said, sounding defensive. "We get it, Slytherin are the bad guys. But you have to have some trust that Ava and I aren't complete bimbos who talk our mouths off in the common room."

Ginny eyes us but Sam's words were enough to end that conversation.

"Not that she should know," Sam added later on when it was just the two of us, "but we better stop talking openly about the D.A. in our dormitory. We don't need another Kennedy slip." I was smiling openly at Sam's obvious effort to play this comment off. In reality Sam must have thought over what Ginny had said and came to this thought predeterminedly.

"Fair point."

Every corridor you walked you would see someone from the inquisitor squad, usually a Slytherin, causing trouble. It became drastically clear that even if there were good Slytherins in the house, we were seriously outnumbered by the rest.

The house point systems were screwed with Slytherins leading by over 150 points, something never seen before. As February appeared and the Inquisitor squad was met with no resistance, even from the teaching body, they stopped lurking and became more confident; swaggering in the midst of crowds, taking up the best seats in the classrooms, cornering students in masses for the stupidest of reasons... It was never ending.