Out of the Shadows [Book Three]

Chapter Six:

dedicated to RobynHolland for being awesome and supportive and <3 yes 

Chapter Six: 

I finished the detentions with my head held high but my body in unimaginable pain, I kept pushing through knowing that after it was all over, I could go back to planning the Carrow's demise and I knew in my very soul that I wouldn't make it quick or painless for either of them.  I would make them regret ever being born.  

Stretching out, I watched as the last student (besides myself, Neville and Ginny) left the Common Room before I sighed and wondered why Neville had called us here and asked us to stay up so late in the night when he knew we all had class first thing in the morning.  

"Two years ago, Harry taught us how to defend ourselves against the Dark Arts, we called ourselves Dumbledore's Army.. I want to start that back up."  Neville was staring at me, as if he was waiting for me to speak against the idea but instead I grinned, knowing that eventually I would get some recognition for my ability to design spells, defensive and offensive.  My eyes lit up and connected with Neville's own as I agreed feverently.  This was possibly the best thing to happen to me since the Longbottom boy had made his bravery known.

"That's a brilliant idea!," Ginny exclaimed, her own blue eyes bright with an excitement that I hadn't seen in her since my brother ran off with Granger and the other Weasley.  "We can get together the original members that are still here and begin recruiting.  Eventually this will come to a war, they know it and we know it, we should start teaching the students how to defend themselves."  

"We three and Luna should be the teachers, if someone else shows extraordinary talents in a certain subject or on a certain spell, we can ask them to help as well," she continued, her words flying out at a hundred kilometers an hour as she planned everything out, you could taste her excitement in the air, it was practically tangible and pouring out of her every pore, transferring itself from her, to the room, to us.   

As she and Neville kept planning, outlining the first things they should start teaching all the way down to how long they should wait before moving on to another subject, I sat back in my seat by the fire and only pitched in an idea once in a while.  I was simply happy to just be included, for once in my life I felt wanted.  They didn't have to invite me to the common room this late and tell me about their plans, they didn't have to invite me to become a teacher in Dumbledore's Army but yet they did.  It felt akin to how I felt being accepted by the Malfoy's, almost as good but not quite reaching that standard.  

I was happy, despite all the bad things happening to and around me. 

*

Nightmares haunted me for days on end, reducing me to a puddle of useless rubble that was practically good for absolutely nothing.  I was convinced that the Dark Lord was using Legilimency to ruin me from the inside.  In my bedchamber, I tried to brew all sorts of potions for sound-sleeping and I was forced to consume nearly four litres of energy potions a day just to make it through without falling asleep during classes.  

Christmas was coming up quickly and I knew many of the students were thankful for the fact, and in many cases several of the Gryffindors (and most probably the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws) didn't plan to return at the end of the holidays.  I knew for a fact that even though Collin Creevey was able to fake his own family tree (thanks to help from Sir Nicholas the Gryffindor Ghost), he and his brother wouldn't be coming back to Hogwarts to finish their sixth year and fifth year.  I think Ginny had been debating on not returning but with the start of Dumbledore's Army, she'd decided it was worth it to come back and help younger students (and even the older ones) learn how to properly defend themselves. 

Neville knew how to get into the kitchens and often was able to get some half-decent food from the house elves instead of the gruel that the Carrow's and Snape liked to feed to the Gryffindors and for the first day of the meet up for the D.A he made sure that there was enough food to go around, he explained the basics of what would be happening and passed out small coins all about the same size and shape.  Neville explained that they had a Protean charm placed over them and that he could use them to tell us when the time and date of the next class would be held.  They would warm up whenever the time and date was changed as well.  

In various corners of the room we were meeting at (the Room of Requirement) were straw dummies, all of them with their own wand  and a shirt on but otherwise bare, they were what we would practice with.  There were four main teachers, (Neville, Ginny, Luna and myself) and we would split the students up equally between ourselves in order to teach them and each group would get a straw man to use our spells and jinxes and charms against.

Over the week since we'd spoken about restarting the D.A I had been working on new spells and curses, but between classes and the nightmares and the detentions I had been having just a bit of trouble with all of them but I wrote down all the spells I'd already created that I could show them.  Obviously all the torture curses couldn't be used here, but I would be able to show them my Devil's snare, not to mention my shield curse that I had sworn would one day save my life; not that I could remember how to do it.   

Oh well, I could design a new shield charm easily enough; and maybe I could finally surpass the record holder for taking less than twenty hours to design a new spell.  

Don't get too ahead of yourself, Amy, my mind whispered, for now just develop useful spells to teach everyone else.  Nodding to myself, I opened my  latin prefixes, how to design spells, and dark arts spell books and grabbed several spare bits of parchment with a quill and some ink before setting to work while trying desperately not to fall asleep.  

*

"No, you flick your wrist to the left  before swishing it upwards, not to the right and doing a wrist-pop," I admonished Neville nearly a week later as I tried to teach him, Ginny and Luna the spell I'd just finished designing.  It was a simple enough strength spell, letting the user become stronger for about an hour, faster and healthier as well, able to survive many curses thrown at them that would normally kill them.  Of course, from the rats i had tested it on, it wouldn't stop Avada Kedavra from killing them, but it did protect a bit from Sectumsempra and the Reductor curse as well, not to mention my own curses.

"Contedio," Ginny said, getting the spell right on her fourth try.  I could see her squirm slightly uncomfortably, alerting me to the fact that she'd done it right as it makes the user very warm around the hand and arm areas, but she soon got used to it.  

Neville, however, took another half an hour to teach and though I tried not to become impatient with him I had quite the hard time, he was so brave and smart yet he wasted everything with Herbology that in the end I wound up yelling at him and asking Ginny to teach him while I wandered off to calm myself down.

Throughout the rest of the night, I also taught them Diaboli Laqueum Alligandi Bitis, and even trusting them enough to teach them about Casoplenta and Casoplenta Homo (not telling them that it was tested and worked but only that it was a theory in case there was an emergency and they desperately needed to kill someone).  

"I wish we could use this on Snape and the Carrows," Ginny muttered, her eyes dark with anger as she stared at a wall adjacent to herself.  I nodded along with her though I could tell Neville was uncomfortable speaking about killing anyone at all.  

"I'll keep working on new spells, we'll keep teaching everyone else how to defend themselves and if or when this comes to war, we'll be prepared.  We will survive, all of us."