Not as Evil as He Seems

Not as Evil as He Seems

"Has anyone ever told you that you have an odd-shaped head?"

These were the first words Neville heard upon regaining consciousness. The first thing he did was spit several strands of long hair out of his mouth. There was only one person it could have possibly been sitting at his bedside; he could tell from the dreamy-toned voice and the hair that she never wore up when she came to see him.

When he finally did open his eyes, he could see the form of Luna Lovegood: eyes wide with worry, but otherwise appearing calm. "You most certainly had a horrible day in class, it seems."

Neville tried to push himself up, but sharp pains shot through every muscle in his body and he was forced back down, wincing from the after-effects of the Cruciatus Cruse. In today's Dark Arts lesson, Neville had refused to use the same curse on a Ravenclaw girl, Lisa Turpin, so it was instead turned on him. The Cruciatus Curse had been performed on Neville dozens of times this year, either in detention or in class, and he seemed to be gaining somewhat of an immunity to its effects. So, in turn, the Carrows would just use it on him for even longer and longer periods of time to compensate. Today, it had been especially bad, and had landed Neville right in the Hospital Wing, where he sat right now.

Every time he would suffer under the curse, Neville would always find his thoughts going straight to his parents. What had they been thinking about in their brief moments of relief from the Cruciatus Cure? How long had it taken for them to go mad? Did a person have to suffer the curse's for a long, single period, or could the effects be cumulative, the way Neville had been enduring it before they found themselves at the same level of insanity his parents were at? However, these thought would usually come after the curse had finally stopped. When you were truly in its grips, all you could think about was the pain. The pain was your whole world.

Luna smoothed a strand of Neville's hair away from his swollen eye. "I do have something I believe will make you feel much better," she said as she retrieved something from her shoulder bag. "Terry Boot just put the last touches on the final draft this morning."

Neville quickly snatched the stack of parchment from Luna's hand as it rose above the level of his bed. He skimmed over the first few lines to make sure it truly was what he thought it was.

And it was.

It was one in a series of reports that Dumbledore's Army had complied for the aid of the Order. Just saying it like that made it seem rather boring and unimportant, but Neville had learned enough about war this year to know that even the smallest piece of information about the enemy could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

This latest information was on the Carrows. It even included a detailed schedule of where the brother and sister could be found at any given point in the day. It was almost disturbing, how detailed of a report it really was, but it was clearly a well written one. And clearly something that would be of great value on either side of the current conflict.

"It's good, Luna," Neville said, continuing to flip through the rest of the pages. "Terry did a great job on this."

A soft rustle from across the room, and Neville and Luna startled at it. It turned out to only be Madam Pomfrey, pulling up the sheets on an empty bed, but the two students remained on edge still, even after the room had quieted once again.

"I got word that an owl will be coming to the school tomorrow night," Luna told him, speaking in more hushed tones now. "Do you want me to hold onto it and take it to the party?"

Luna looked down at the bed and over Neville's more recent injuries at the hands of the Carrows and some of the more enthusiastic students in their Dark Arts lessons. "The night's rest would do you a world of good."

"No," Neville insisted, straining to push himself into an upright position. "No, no; the Hufflepuffs are expecting to meet me with these records. If someone else shows up, they might suspect something has gone wrong, and that will waste precious time that we don't have."

Luna appeared finally more worried as she mulled over Neville's words and looked over his injuries. "Alright, she finally agreed. "Make sure you take advantage of all the rest you can get tonight, though."

"I intend to," Neville assured her as he reclined back, feeling somewhat better now that the strain had been taken off his muscles.

"I should go then." Luna pushed herself away from Neville's bedside and stood to her feet. "I really should write to my father tonight. He has been so worried about me lately."

"Luna, wait a minute." Neville stopped her before she could leave.

The blonde Ravenclaw stopped and turned to meet Neville with that same calm, yet dotty expression of hers. "Yes?"

"Did you mean it that I have an odd-shaped head?"

"Of course," Luna answered plainly, as though she were only talking about the weather. "It has ridges like a pumpkin, and it getting big and starting to turn orange too. You really should stop provoking the Carrows. I don't think it's good for you."

And with the simple, honest statement, Luna skipped out of the Hospital Wing leaving Neville still on his bed and not quite sure what to think. A hand drifted up to his face, as though to check for any indents or a more pumpkin-like texture to his skin.

**********

The next night, Neville was released from the Hospital Wing. He was very insistent about it, although Madam Pomfrey did everything she could to keep him right where he was. It was true that his injuries were still fairly fresh and he was still in a good amount of pain, but deep down, Neville doubted that the Healer's reason had anything to do with that. Neville spent a lot of time in the Hospital Wing, a lot more than most students, and even though Neville would never admit to it, she had a feeling that not all of these visits were because of injuries that could be legitimately explained.

"There you are," Madam Pomfrey said, gingerly handing Neville his book bag. "Straight to Gryffindor Tower, and no side-trips."

Neville nodded and made a noncommittal sound before cringing under the weight of the bag on his shoulder. When he finally looked up once again, he saw Madam Pomfrey chewing on her bottom lip, a worried expression over her face. "Please, Mr. Longbottom," she pleaded.

Neville clenched his teeth as he tried his best not to look the woman directly in the eyes.

It would have been nice of him to lie and say he wasn't going to be doing anything tonight that could possibly land him right back where he had spent the last two days. The only problem with those kinds of lies was that their effects could only give a person comfort for so long, before the truth shattered it.

"You have a good evening, Madam Pomfrey," Neville said to the Healer before making his way out into the corridor.

He did not obey Madam Pomfrey's orders to go straight back to Gryffindor. He couldn't, not if he wanted any hope of the Carrows report getting out of Hogwarts tonight. Instead, when he reached the staircase at the end of the hall, he took it down to the lowest level of the castle; not the old way he used to take to go to Potions class, though. This was the staircase that led down to the school kitchens and, of course, the Hufflepuff dormitories. Even the students who had never been to either of these places new exactly where this staircase was every day, just before mealtimes, the heavy smells of the delicious foods would float up and make their collective mouths water. For the Hufflepuffs, to have these smells around them constantly, it either had to be heaven or torture.

Neville jumped the last few steps remaining to the floor, then scolded himself silently once he heard the loud thud his feet made. He made sure the rest of the way, he was a quiet as was physically possible for him to be, even if he didn't end up moving very fast.

Pacing along the corner wall between the entrances to the kitchens and the Hufflepuff common room were three Hufflepuff members of Dumbledore's Army: Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, and Ernie Macmillan. They owl they were going to meet tonight belonged to a friend of Ernie's dead Uncle Edmund; hopefully someone just distant enough that it would not be able to be traced back to them if worst came to worst. Having the owl fly straight to one of the towers was definitely not an option. It would have been far too easy to be caught by a spying housemate. While not everyone had been turned to the opposing side outright, the fear instilled by the new disciplines the Carrows enforced could lead anyone to confess something they had seen in order to avoid the Cruciatus Curse.

"I'm sorry," he apologized to the waiting students. "I was being kept in the Hospital Wing, and it is still somewhat painful to run very fast."

"Did you remember the report?" Ernie asked first thing.

Neville nodded, shrugging his book bag off of his shoulder and extracting the stack of papers to show them.

"Can I see?" Hannah asked him, holding out her hands to take the papers.

Neville handed the stack over to the Hufflepuff girl for her to see herself. Hannah flipped through the pages with Susan and Ernie peering over her shoulders.

"Are you sure you will be able to keep up?" Susan asked suddenly, her eyes flicking over Neville's injuries. "If you need to rest longer, the three of use can certainly manage alone."

Neville shook his head and tried to stand up straighter. "I'm alright," he insisted yet again. "It all looks a lot worse than it is."

The three Hufflepuffs still seemed a bit skeptical about Neville's words, yet all the same, they weren't going to turn down help that was being offered to them.

"Very well, then," Ernie finally relented, getting the other two girls to stop as well. "Let's go before we get caught."

The Hufflepuffs raced on ahead of him before remembering that Neville might not be able to keep up with that pace. After looking over their shoulders and seeing Neville lagging behind they slowed themselves just enough for the Gryffindor to keep up. Every so often, the person leading the group would suddenly throw out their arm and stop all those behind them at a crashing stop, sometimes over a suspicious sound, but more commonly because of an opening in the corridor.

"Alright," Susan said to them once she was certain that the coast was clear. "Let's move!"

One by one, the four students slipped across the corridor, stepping as lightly on their feet as they possibly could. Time, or at least Neville's sense of it, seemed to fade away, and all he could focus on was the document that Hannah was still holding tight to and the closing distance between them and the window that the owl would be waiting for them at. Closer, and closer, and...

"Freeze, the lot of you!"

Again, the four members of Dumbledore's Army crashed into one another as they came to a screeching halt. The girls had their eyes clenched shut, but just because they couldn't see him didn't mean that the person who had caught them wasn't who they were fearing it was.

It was Amycus Carrow, their Dark Arts teacher.

"What good reason could there be we for all of you to be out of bed together in the middle of the night?"

He paced back and forth in front of the group, eyeing them like a vulture.

"And what is that your little friend has in her hand?" Amycus Carrow asked, leaning over to peer down at Hannah.

"Nothing," Hannah said to him.

"You're lying," he answered bluntly. "I think it is something you were trying to smuggle out of the school without anyone noticing."

"Well, if you already knew, then why did you ask me what it was?" Hannah snapped back.

Neville had been especially surprised by this response from the blonde Hufflepuff. Granted, all the members of Dumbledore's Army had become much bolder and considerably hardened since joining the organization, but Hannah was quite possibly the last person Neville would have expected to mouth off to a person in authority, even under the most dim of circumstances. After all, this was the same girl who he watched have a nervous breakdown in Herbology because she believed she wasn't intelligent to take her O.W.L.s, and then left class again the next year and never returned after learning that her mother had been murdered. It wasn't that Hannah was exactly a weak person, she just didn't have the temperament to be a good soldier.

Then again, Hannah was hardly the same person she was back then. None of them were; the war had changed every single one of them. If it hadn't, he doubted any of them would be wandering through the school corridors in the dead of night; even when it meant a fate worse than expulsion.

Amycus began to shake and his face started to turn bright purple, making him look as though he were going to explode. But not before snatching the documents from Hannah's hands. "All of you, march!"

**********

It didn't take more than a few moments for the swift action to come crashing down on their heads. Soon enough, the four of them found themselves waiting just outside the headmasters office, awaiting their impending fate, and the report gone forever. Well, not completely, because Amycus Carrow was still waving in front of their faces in a taunting manner in the way someone might tease a dog with a biscuit.

"Now all of you stay right here," Amycus instructed, using the rolled up papers to point at them. "I'll be showing this little report of yours to the headmaster, and won't he be thrilled to hear that you disturbed his sleep with such a blatant attack against the Dark Lord."

The four students all did their best to remain sitting up straight with expressions like stone, but this feat was starting notably more difficult. In all the years before, the students only speculated that Professor Snape was a Dark servant of Voldemort capable of cold-blooded murder, but now that they actually knew that he was, he was all the more terrifying.

Amycus made his way up a staircase to, what Neville assumed were Snape's private quarters, leaving the four students down staring at the floor. Anyone else might have though that knowing where their enemy slept would be a piece of information no one could pass up. Anyone who did believe this, however, had not spent the last seven years of their lives being tormented by the man who was quickly becoming who was quickly becoming the face of evil at Hogwarts School.

"I just spoke to the headmaster," Amycus told them. "He said he will be down in a few moments, and he seemed quite intent on handling this act of blatant treason himself."

The members of Dumbledore's Army all conveyed their own signs of understand, and were also all doing their best not to convey any sense of weakness. But anyone who took a few moments to watch them might have notice the slight fits of shaking that had taken over their bodies.

After the first hour, most of the initial fear had begun to fade away. Susan Bones began to slide her feet apart and together again in a rhythmic manner, Hannah Abbot was chewing on a strand of her own hair, and Ernie Macmillan was swinging his pocket watch back and forth in front of his face, as though he were trying to hypnotize himself. Whenever the watch came within Neville's range of peripheral vision, he would make note of the time they had waited, right down to the second. He had few doubts that he was the only one in their little group doing so.

It was embarrassing to admit at his age, but he was terrified of Professor Snape. The Carrows, the Cruciatus Curse, a room full of girls pointing at him and laughing; whatever, he could cope. Anything, as long as it didn't involve actual human contact with the school's newly appointed headmaster. It was almost like a childhood fear of the monster-under-the-bed that never went away.

And to be forced to face his greatest fear in front of all these students who had just recently come to respect him? Neville could not imagine anything worse.

If Professor Snape ever came down to face them anyway. Now it had been an hour and a half, and there was still no sign of him. Hannah had nodded off and her head was now resting on Neville's shoulder. Susan was continually drifting into states of unconsciousness and snapping back into attention just in time to keep herself from falling to the floor. And still, Ernie stared blankly at his swinging watch.

It was after exactly two hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-eight seconds, the anxious and dread was finally brought to an end, signaled by the sound of a door slamming above their heads.

It was Professor Snape, storming down the stairs to meet with the condemned members of Dumbledore's Army, his hair mussed and greasier than usual, and his robes thrown on in a rushed-appearing manner. The new headmaster rubbed his bleary eyes and then took a double take at the four waiting seventh-years as though he were shocked to even see them there.

"What are you all doing out of bed?" he snapped at them.

The students looked up at their former Potions Master, confused, Neville especially. None of them could be certain if the man was leading to some long-winded lecture to humiliate them, or if in the late hour, he has really forgotten why the four of them were there.

"Get back to your Houses, all of you, right now, before I expel the lot of you!"

That was what it finally took to get the four of them to their feet and running from Professor Snape's clutches. If he was giving them the chance, they were most definitely going to take it.

Neville was still far too sore to run as fast as the other three, so he lagged behind on the stairs as he contemplated what had just happened to them. How on earth had they actually been hand delivered to the headmaster's office and still have gotten off completely scoot free? Maybe, it being such a late hour at night, Professor Snape was so tired that the reason why the four of them were there had completely escaped him. If they were like, he might even remember when morning came, and they would get away with this whole incident completely without punishment.

This type of thinking, however, was soon abandoned.

Behind them, Neville heard the sound fluttering paper behind him. He turned around just in time to see the last of a bunch of parchment fall from the headmaster's staircase to the ground.

It was the Carrows report that had been taken from them. As far as he could tell, nothing had been done to compromise the document's integrity. It had not been hexed to attack him (at least so far), none of the words had been censored out, Professor Snape had not even 'accidentally' spilled a bottle of ink on any of the pages.

There was no mistaking the intent behind these actions, Neville realized as he gathered up the papers. Professor Snape had deliberately thrown the papers from his office down to the floor below right after they had left so at least one of them could see them and collect them again.

And if that were true, unless this was all leading up to some larger scheme by the headmaster, it could only mean one thing. Snape was not as much as an evil person as he allowed the world to believe.

That was certainly a disturbing thought.