I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_ron]

Look. I know that some of you lot are throwing in with Malfoy, and, all right, I see how it makes sense for people in the same House to work together since we have lessons alone more than not.

But.

I think we could work together, too. Especially if Fred and George and Lee would help, we could figure out some stuff that would get us out of tight spots that might not be so tight for Malfoy or Marvolo, if you see what I mean.

But you couldn't share stuff we figure out with them. All right?

What do you say?

Comments

[alt_neville]

I'm in.

I haven't ever told you, but...see, there are some books at home. From my parents, cause they were aurors. I read a lot of them over the summer. So I know some stuff that I think could help. Cause to tell the truth, I've been worried about Professor Carrow.

[alt_lee]

Are you serious Nev? You've been reading auror textbooks??

[alt_neville]

Well, a lot of it is beyond me, of course. But yeah.

[alt_gredforge]

There are obviously hidden depths to you, Neville.

Wicked.

[alt_ron]

Did you bring them to school?

I bet Fred and George could make more of them than we could, and then they could teach us.

[alt_neville]

They're at home. But I can bring some back after Easter break.

[alt_ron]

Yeah, you should do.

Especially any that talk about spells they don't teach us here. Or ways to make protection spells more powerful or whatever.

[alt_pansy]

Are you going to work on things in Gryffindor, too? I know Thomas and Finnegan can be annoying, but it does make sense to learn how to work together just for safety alone.

And yeah, we should definitely practice. And I'm sure Fred and George and Lee would have lots of advanced stuff they could show us that would be totally ace, if they'd be willing. And Sally-Anne and I will be the BEST EVER at this if we get to practise twice as much!

[alt_pansy]

And yeah, I wouldn't show them anything special we'd sorted out. It'd be tonnes better to just take everyone by surprise.

[alt_sally_anne]

I think the more practice we get at this the better.

[alt_ron]

Well, yeah. Although you two are going to end up being better than any of the rest of us. So I guess we'll figure that in our plan, right?

[alt_ron]

Yeah. Did you see Finnigan's private message? He wants us all to get together. And that's all right, but I'm a little worried that his real plan is to set us up, Nev and me and maybe Bundy, too, so we're the ones that get hurt if anything happens.

But it's smarter to go along and see what he's talking about, and then make plans of our own of what to do if we have to just take care of ourselves.

I mean, with you lot, we know that the Slytherin plan is 'duck behind a Gryffindor', but at least I'm pretty sure that you won't hex me in the back once you're behind me. You and Sally Anne, anywiz. No way I'm letting Malfoy behind me or any of the rest of them. Just so we're clear.

[alt_sally_anne]

You Gryffindors are supposed to be chivalrous, right? Isn't that what the Hat said? It's not so much 'ducking behind you' as 'letting you dive heroically in front of us.'

It's only chivalry if you're doing it for a Witch, though, yeah? So you're off the hook for Draco!

[alt_sally_anne]

But seriously, if we do some practising we could turn that into a real strategy.

Stupid people expect girls to scream and go all useless. If Pansy and I PLAN to scream, whoever it is will expect we're too scared to do anything and will focus on other people and won't be paying any attention to what we're doing.

Also, if we scream loud enough it'll drown out your hexes so the other person won't know what you're casting. Silent spellcasting is a NEWT-level technique, I think. We could TRY but I wouldn't expect to get very far. (I suppose with some opponents we'd be drowning their spells out, too, but the Carrows already know how to do silent spellcasting, in fact Miss Professor Carrow was using it on me and Draco which I think is why some of the Hufflepuffs still think Draco just messed up when the bookcase fell on me.)

[alt_ron]

Heh.

I think we'll need to plan on you doing more than just screaming, yeah?

But I see your point. People sort of expect Nev to knock into stuff or get himself hexed, so if he fell down right away, they'd probably all pay attention to me and whoever's throwing hexes instead of Nev. And then he could roll under a table and start hexing their shoelaces into knots or do a knee-reversal or a flipper-foot or just hex their feet off.

[alt_sally_anne]

The point is to make them THINK we're useless. Not to actually BE useless.

And yeah, that's a good point about Neville. He probably shouldn't scream, though, people would say he was being girly.

[alt_ron]

I don't know about all this screaming.

We don't have to practise it, do we? Cause that'd be really annoying.

[alt_sally_anne]

Hermione, do you know if Harry's planning to bring you to the practice sessions?

I was thinking I would send him a message to try to be sure he does. Because we should plan ways to protect you. Let me know if you DON'T want me to do this, if you have a reason that you'd rather not come I won't push it.